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Supreme Court Rams Race Back on the Presidential Plate

The U.S. Supreme Court almost certainly will vote before the November presidential election on whether to scrap race as a factor in college admissions. The conservative majority has time and again tipped their hand that they are chomping to do away with it. The recusal of moderate justice Elena Kagan virtually assures they’ll get their way. The justices may not have had thoughts about how affirmative action and the issue of race will play out in the presidential campaign. But it will again present all the thorny, potentially inflammatory, sore spots that race always pricks.

The likely GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum, will have an easy time with the issue. They will simply repeat the stock conservative mantra that discrimination is discrimination and must be opposed. Conservatives have backed that up with decades of lawsuits, ballot initiatives, and administrative rulings that have torpedoed any and every effort to use race to promote diversity. The assault on affirmative action will do more than just give the GOP candidate a chance to pose as the defender of a color blind America. It also potentially revives affirmative action as a campaign wedge issue. The issue largely fell off the nation’s radar scope nearly a decade ago when the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the University of Michigan’s right to use race as a factor in increasing minority numbers at the school.

The Bush administration at first vigorously backed the challenge to the University’s affirmative action program. But mostly due to the strong and very public dissent from then Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Bush waffled and ultimately softened his opposition to it, and pretty much accepted the decision.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, affirmative action was not an issue. GOP presidential candidate John McCain and Obama made only the barest mention of it. And that came only in response to when California anti-affirmative action crusader Ward Connerly plopped his anti-affirmative action measure on ballots in three states, one of which was McCain’s home state of Arizona. McCain backed the Connerly measure. He insisted that he backed equal opportunity and opposed discrimination. Obama opposed the initiatives. Connerly quickly jumped on Obama for it, noting that he cut radio ads in 2006 that hammered his Michigan anti-affirmative action initiative. Obama unabashedly said that if the measure passed it would hurt women and minorities in getting jobs and in education. Connerly tried to use Obama’s opposition to his initiative as a foil. It didn’t diminish voter support for Obama.

But Obama’s election changed things. Race now inched back onto the public stage with conservatives watching hawk like for any hint that the president would in word or policy for any tilt toward minorities in word or administration policies. The faintest sign of that from Obama would have brought loud yelps that he was pandering to minorities and that racial favoritism was the hidden agenda of his administration.

Obama didn’t give that hint. But the suspicion that race lurked closely under the surface in the Obama administration’s policy decisions didn’t evaporate, and if the president wouldn’t play into conservative’s hands on race, then they could always be manufacture a racial issue. The recent spate of musings and articles by talk show hosts web sites, blogs, and news reports that the president has written off white workers in his reelection bid fits neatly into the bogus scenario that minorities are poised to be the prime beneficiaries of a second Obama term.

This makes the Supreme Court’s decision to take up affirmative action even more irresistible to the GOP as an issue to back Obama into a corner and hopefully get him to take a strong public position in support of affirmative action. If that happens the GOP will quickly pounce and play it up for all its worth to attempt to prick the racial suspicions and sensitivity of some white voters. But this might not be as cut and dried as the GOP would like all to believe.

Congress has repeatedly backed away from totally dismantling affirmative action programs, beginning a decade ago when lawmakers shelved anti-affirmative action legislation. President Bill Clinton followed suit. He drew much heat for his plan to modify some aspects of affirmative action programs, but eventually dropped his administration’s talk about further watering down affirmative action programs.

Neither the Obama administration nor any of the GOP presidential contenders have uttered a word about the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case. It’s simply too hot an issue at this early stage of the campaign to weigh in on. But the court’s likely anti-affirmative action ruling timed for November or before will almost certainly radically change that. The certainly now is that affirmative action will be shoved back on the presidential plate.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour heard weekly on the nationally network broadcast Hutchinson Newsmaker Network.
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